I’m puzzled by the mess that is GE. The Company recently removed former CEO John Flannery after only 14 months at the helm only to replace him with a Board member (Larry Culp). I was a fan of Flannery’s effort to decentralize operations and to divest non-strategic businesses. However, I did not agree with all…

“CEO Tenure Is Getting Shorter..” the Wall Street Journal writes. Research indicates that the optimal tenure is 4.8 years. Median CEO tenure at large cap companies was five years in 2017, one year less than the median in 2013 (Equilar). To quote the article, “Xueming Luo, professor at Temple University’s Fox School of Business and…

Successful CEOs possess each of the attributes described below. This is an unscientific analysis based upon my prior experience covering and acquiring companies (equity research analyst; M&A executive) as well as my current role as founder of CEORater. It is important to recognize that while these attributes are qualitative in nature they do impact the…

To Centralize is to Oppress This article focuses on centralized business models and why they don’t work. Ben is our anti-hero who learns this lesson the hard way. We Detest Centralized Business Models for Several Reasons: 1.) The centralized model assumes that corporate headquarters knows best. Could there be a more arrogant assumption? For any…

Personality Analytics Holds the Key as to Why Apple Was More Innovative Under Steve Jobs than Tim Cook

Apple has lost its creative mojounderTim Cook. Incremental product enhancements have become the norm, replacing a time when revolutionary new products, space age design and landmark advertising was the standard. What changed? Look no further than the CEO chair. Apple founder, CEO and creative genius Steve Jobs prematurely passed away in October 2011. Jobs’ hand-picked successor, Tim Cook, is by experience an operator with a background steeped in supply chain experience. Cook could not be more different from Jobs from a personality standpoint (see our table below).

The importance of assessing a CEO’s personality when conducting a CEO selection process (corporate boards, executive recruiters), or investment due diligence process can not be overstated. This is especially true of industry verticals marked by rapid change where the cost of having an ineffective CEO can be extremely high. It is not so rare to find a situation where a CEO, Board and institutional investor base were slow to realize that a given company’s customers were migrating elsewhere due to product obsolescence or other factors that ought to have been recognized. Few participants want to acknowledge this type of deterioration early or mid-cycle and only do so when it’s too late.

CEOs that create “adaptable” corporate cultures are less likely to lead companies that suffer irreparable declines due to product under-investment or other negligent factors. Adaptable cultures are less likely to be caught off guard and instead lead market change.

Corporate cultures are often an extension of the CEO’s personality. Yes, CEOs influence culture and corporate strategy even in mega-cap companies. Look no further than Microsoft (MSFT) during Steve Ballmer’s tenure as compared to Satya Nadella‘s time as CEO. MSFT’s product & services strategy is dramatically different as is the firm’s approach to competing and partnering with other technology companies.

We highly value the personality trait “openness” in large part because of its relationship to adaptable cultures. Steve Jobs and Tim Cook score similarly on the openness scale – 92nd percentile and 94th percentile respectively. However, looking at the personality sub-traits under openness, Jobs scores far higher than Cook in the two most creative personality sub-traits: “artistic interests” and “imagination”.

Given that Cook lags in these areas, one would need to get comfortable with the idea that a non-creative personality like his (32nd percentile and 14th percentile as detailed below) is capable of generating massive creative output from Apple’s 120,000-plus employees. This is asking too much of Tim Cook in our view. What doesn’t come naturally doesn’t come easily and may not come at all.